Trial Opens Doors To Neverland

Jury Hears Of Michael Jackson's Ranch

SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- At Michael Jackson's ranch, Neverland, wine and liquor are hidden in an underground room down a set of stairs concealed by a jukebox on wheels in the large video-game arcade.

The main house has several rooms devoted to toys and dolls, including a life-sized model of a child in a Boy Scout uniform and models of Batman, Darth Vader and Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. Disney characters and cherubs populate the house and gardens. Jackson kept in his bedroom a lifelike mannequin, which someone had lewdly defaced with a marker, of an 8-year-old girl said to be a relative.

Jackson's trial on child-molesting charges here has provided jurors and spectators with an intimate look into some of the hidden corners of his 2,800-acre Eden in the Santa Ynez Valley.

PORTRAITS AND PORN

Over Jackson's bed is a print of "The Last Supper." At the foot of his bed is a crib for his youngest child, Prince Michael II, also known as "Blanket." In Jackson's nightstand, police found family photographs and pornographic magazines. Sexually explicit materials were also found in his bathroom, a downstairs closet and in his library, which his lawyer said contained thousands of volumes. Records of visits to pornographic Web sites were recovered from three of the 14 computers seized at the estate.

Some of the reading interest in the Jackson household runs to what prosecutors delicately call "teen-themed" material featuring female models.

All this material and hundreds of other pieces of evidence were seized Nov. 18, 2003, when almost 70 detectives, investigators and deputy sheriffs descended on Neverland to serve an expansive search warrant. Helicopters hovered as the team combed through and videotaped every nook of the estate, staying all day and into the night. Jackson turned himself in two days later and was arrested, fingerprinted and photographed.

Since his trial began four weeks ago, Jackson has sat in the courtroom for hours of testimony in evident physical and mental pain as his lavish world of fantasy has been unearthed and publicly cataloged.

He has been charged with four counts of child molesting, one count of attempted child molesting, four counts of administering alcohol to a minor to aid in child abuse and a count of conspiracy to kidnap and falsely imprison the family of the boy who raised the accusations. He has pleaded not guilty and is free on $3 million bond.

Thomas A. Mesereau Jr., the lead lawyer for Jackson, petitioned the judge to allow jurors to tour Neverland, saying the prosecution had unfairly depicted the ranch as a pedophile's paradise, a candy-coated lure for unsuspecting children.

"So much of this case involves what the nature of Neverland is," Mesereau pleaded in court March 18 outside the presence of the jury. "I don't think there's been an alleged crime scene that more cries out for a jury view than this."

He said of the prosecution, "They're trying to portray Neverland as a criminal enterprise or criminal location from A to Z." Mesereau said Neverland is, in fact, a genius's castle, a wonderful escape from reality and a haven for thousands of ill and underprivileged children through the years.

The trial has offered other glimpses into Jackson's pampered and eccentric ways. He amuses himself by climbing trees and racing around in NASCAR-style cars on a track on his property. The singer's stable of household vehicles includes limousines, sport utility vehicles and a Rolls-Royce. Jackson always flew on chartered jets, usually a 12-passenger Gulfstream operated by Xtra Jet.

The lead flight attendant on many of Jackson's trips, Lauren Wallace, testified that Jackson's staff asked her to serve him white wine in Diet Coke cans because he did not want his kids to see him drinking.

Wallace also said that Jackson always ordered the plane to be stocked with Subway sandwiches and Kentucky Fried Chicken, which he and his children sometimes ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

`MY HEART BROKE RIGHT THERE'

The testimony presents a picture of Jackson as a perpetual adolescent who made crude comments about the models in pornographic magazines and liked to make crank calls from his airplane and his bedroom.

The accuser says that Jackson molested him twice in late February or early March 2003. The family left the ranch for the last time March 12 or 13, after Jackson grew suspicious of the family and its motives and ordered aides to get rid of them.

Although the boy claims he was upset by the alleged abuse, what seemed to bother him more was being banished forever from Jackson's Eden.

When testifying about the sexual incidents, the boy's voice and manner were flat and unemotional, and he had to be prompted to express any dismay about the alleged molesting. But when he spoke of Jackson ignoring him and evicting his family, the boy grew heated. He recounted a time near the end of his stay at Neverland when Jackson walked past but did not acknowledge him.